‘AD CONSORTIUM’ DEBUT: MISSION IS TO LINK BEST PRACTICES FOR CREATIVE ASSET MANAGEMENT, DISTRIBUTION AND DELIVERY

NEW YORK, NY – December 16, 2016 – Today the Ad Consortium, in support of advertisers and agencies, announced its formation. The first group of its kind, the Ad Consortium is comprised of leading advertising and agency industry stakeholders, including Adstream, Comcast Technology Solutions, Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing, Entertainment Communications Network (ECN), and The TEAM Companies. Each founding company plays key roles in the process of creating, distributing and tracking digital advertising content. The companies have cooperated with each other to create a seamless integrated process for advertising content, benefiting advertisers and agencies alike.

In advertising today, the creative ecosystem is more multi-channel and global than ever. Content for both traditional and emerging platforms is often produced in one country, edited in another, then delivered across the media spectrum worldwide, servicing thousands of demographic and geographic segments. This creates a challenging dynamic for advertisers and agencies. It makes managing multi-channel, global ad campaigns across stakeholders complex, time-consuming, and prone to errors, elevating overall spend as well as brand risk. The Ad Consortium will combine best practices across traditional and emerging media, making it easier to distribute, track and pay for creative work as well as procure talent and navigate rights and license management.

“Creative asset management is one of the biggest pain points for the industry given how complex the landscape is from start to finish,” said Ian Wheal, Global Strategy Director at Adstream. “Through Ad Consortium, we will now be able to take advantage of industry-wide best practices not only for how advertising assets should be managed, but also regarding distribution, scheduling, rights usage, and tracking.”

“As content delivery and monetization gets more complicated across platforms, devices and borders, the Ad Consortium’s mission is to help simplify and improve the process for advertising asset management,” adds Todd Porch, Vice President of International Comcast Technology Solutions.

The Ad Consortium’s objectives include:

Identifying the best protocols in key areas like file-sharing, analytics, talent and rights usage, and more, at each step of the creative process.

Adopting the best protocols and utilizing common nomenclature to provide a smooth and efficient process that improves accuracy and eliminates operational waste.

Using tools like Ad-ID as the common identifier and metadata source for ad distribution, traffic, talent payments, and rights and asset management across all platforms.

Steering marketers through the maze of new and emerging media, (VOD, OTT, HTML5, social, etc.) by enabling efficient ad delivery, tracking and management.

“With an evolving and expanding global advertising ecosystem, the time to make sure our industry is working as effectively as possible is now,” said Greg Smith, CMO at The TEAM Companies. “We are pleased to have co-founded the Ad Consortium with these great partners and are committed to this ideal – finally bringing advertisers, agencies and creatives best practices around creative asset management, delivery, distribution, and more.”

In addition to identifying and using best practices for advertising and creative stakeholders, the Ad Consortium has also announced a technological collaboration to support and accelerate its mission. With each founding company – Adstream, Comcast Technology Solutions, Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing, Entertainment Communications Network, and The TEAM Companies – playing a key role in the process of creating, distributing and tracking of advertising content, they have committed to working with each other’s technology to create a more streamlined approach to the creative lifecycle.

The first group of its kind, the Ad Consortium consists of leading advertising and creative industry stakeholders, including Adstream, Comcast Technology Solutions, Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing, Entertainment Communications Network, and The Team Companies. Each founding company plays a key role in the process of creation, distribution and tracking of digital advertising content. As the creative lifecycle grows more complex and more global, the members of the Ad Consortium have created a seamless process for advertisers, making it easier for them to distribute, track and pay for creative work, as well as procure talent and navigate rights and license management. For more information, visit www.adconsortium.org.